A Lantern in Her Hand starts out in the time of the Civil War and travels to Nebraska where Abbie Deal starts her life of hardship, pain, and joy in the rolling prairie grass. Bess Streeter Aldrich lets the reader become Abbie throughout the book, by the descriptive way that everything is explained and by letting the reader feel the emotions that the characters are experiencing.

     The book tells about Abbie Deal's life from when she is a child in a covered wagon to when she dies peaceful at last. Abbie marries Will Deal and together they make the long journey across the flat prairie to Nebraska where they buy land and raise a family. This book is a biography of a fictional character, yet it sounds like a true story by the way it is told. Abbie is a strong, loving person who must deal with the pain of leaving all her past and family to live out West and never see her family again. She then must move into uncivilized land where they will start a farm and battle the elements of nature to survive and to flourish in this new barren territory.

     What I liked about this book is that the author lets you be the characters; she lets you feel Grace’s concern for her mother or she lets you be Abbie resisting that concern for her "freedom." The author also has a very descriptive style of writing. This lets the reader visualize the sod house the family lived in. By doing that the description of the sod house reminds me of a house carved out of a hill that I saw several years ago. I think that Abbie was a strong character because she was very open with her feelings, whereas other characters were not.

     Abbie is a character that you will not forget. She shows what we all lack in the world today. She also gives the reader more than a story, but a lesson, by displaying her courage, strength, and integrity so that we all might learn from her influence. She also shows great loyalty to her family and friends so that she can pull through the grasshopper disaster and the awful snowstorm. A Lantern in Her Hand is an incredible story about someone who has nothing, yet in her heart, everything.

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